Читать книгу The Folded Paper Mystery - Footner Hulbert - Страница 7

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Midnight. Fin supposed the private detective to be at his heels, but made it a point not to look behind him. He crossed Washington Street and headed south, looking for a taxi bound in the right direction. The busy main street was quiet now, and the cats were coming out. A cab came along and Fin jumped on the running board, hoping there might be no other for his tracker.

“Hudson Tunnels,” he said to the driver, “and step on it!”

However, when he drove up to the entrance of the tunnels there was another cab close behind him. Its occupant did not immediately get out, but Fin had a glimpse of a mask-like face through the front window. Fin descended to the upper level of the tunnel station and hung about gaping at the magazines on the newsstand, until he heard a warning cry from below announcing the departure of a train. Dropping his money in the box, he ran downstairs. However, he was not so quick but the detective boarded the rear car as he made the front one.

Leaving the train at Christopher Street Manhattan, Fin found a single taxi waiting at the station, and congratulated himself. Here’s where I shake him! he thought. He got in, giving the address of his own hang-out in MacDougal Street. But the detective was having the devil’s own luck to-night. He found a taxi somewhere. As Fin unloaded at his own door, his pursuer turned the corner. Fin shrugged. Oh, well, the night is young!

In his room Fin changed to an old suit badly in need of the pressing iron, and a battered felt hat that he could pull down well over his eyes. He loaded the gun and dropped it in his pocket. He possessed no license to carry a gun, but under the present circumstances a man could not stick at that. He was mighty thankful he had a gun.

As he reviewed in his mind all the curious facets of this case, none of which seemed to match, Fin’s thoughts turned desirously towards his friend Amos Lee Mappin, the famous writer on crime. There would be the man to consult in such an emergency. And how he would enjoy getting his teeth into it! But I shan’t go to him, Fin thought hastily. His reputation would blanket me entirely. I must work this out on my own.

On the way back Fin employed every stratagem he could think of to throw off his tracker, but it was all in vain. The detective landed in Hoboken at the same moment he did. His persistence was uncanny. Fin began to be a little worried.

Always looking for a chance to shake him, Fin visited the resorts that were still open. In Meyers’ he sat down in a corner of the bar since he still had time to spare. He could not see his detective, but he had no doubt that the man could see him.

Presently Fin got a shock. Looking through the archway into the restaurant he could see the end of a table where a noisy party was supping. The host, an old rounder, extraordinarily big and fat, was directly in line with Fin’s vision. At first the young man scarcely noticed him, but presently certain significant details stole on him; red cheeks, protuberant blue eyes, waxed moustache, dangling monocle.

“Gosh! it’s the American!” thought Fin. “What’s his game here?”

Immediately afterwards he got another shock.

Within the bar, alongside the archway there was a small table occupied by a single figure, a queer, lean, writhen figure, peeping around the arch at the supper party in the adjoining room. In short Fin’s Robespierre! His back was turned towards Fin, but a noise behind him made him jerk his head around nervously, and Fin had a glimpse of his green face distorted with anger and hatred. He did not spot Fin.

Fin instantly left the building. I don’t know what it all means, he said to himself, but my job to-night is to find the brass ball, and I can’t afford to get mixed up in any fresh complications.

The detective was waiting for him outside, and Fin soon received fresh evidence of his skill in tracking. He was able to take advantage of every bit of cover afforded by the deserted streets, and it was but rarely that Fin got a glimpse of him. Fin led him half the length of the town, turning many a corner, and frequently doubling in his tracks. But the detective appeared to have an uncanny faculty of forecasting what he would do, and he was never caught napping. At last Fin dared waste no more time. When he finally turned into Essex Street it is true he had not seen him in half an hour, but he assumed that he was still on his trail.

Essex Street begins back of Castle Hill, and runs downhill both actually and figuratively until it loses itself amongst the rusty tin cans and rubbish heaps of a former dumping ground under the heights. The dumping ground is bounded by a pool of stagnant water and beyond run the tracks of the belt railway. It is as foul and ugly a spot as that waste where Childe Roland found the Dark Tower. Nothing will grow there except, oddly enough, clumps of gigantic sunflowers.

The last house stands out in the middle of the hummocky dumping ground. It appeared to have been constructed out of the odds and ends to be found in such a place. New rooms had been tacked on at random as additional materials were collected. The whole straggling mass had a kind of sinister picturesqueness under the night sky. It was surrounded by a crazy fence built of discarded sheets of tin roofing, with a wooden gate in front. No sound was to be heard from within and no crack of light appeared anywhere.

It was a clear starry night, and after having been out for an hour Fin could see pretty well. He looked about for the best point of vantage. All he knew was that Kid River was coming to this house some time towards morning. The most direct approach was down Essex Street, but the thief might have reasons for avoiding a direct approach. An examination convinced Fin that his man could not climb the tin fence anywhere without making an ungodly racket, so he determined to watch the gate.

There was no lack of cover amongst the hummocks of ashes and the cast-off articles bestrewn over the dump. Fin hated to lie down in such a place; his nose wrinkled up at the sour smell that hung over it; however he could not afford to be squeamish now. Looking for a hiding place near the gate, he was greatly astonished to stumble over a soft body. A man started up, cursing him in a whine.

“Sorry, ’boe,” said Fin. “I didn’t see you lying there.”

“What the hell are you lookin’ for?” asked the man.

“The same as yourself I reckon,” said Fin quickly; “a place to lie down in.”

“Well, it’s free to all comers,” said the man, mollified. “You ain’t got a cigarette on you, have you?” he asked eagerly.

“Sure,” said Fin, producing a packet. “But hide the light. We don’t want to bring anybody down on us.”

“Hell! I wasn’t born yesterday,” said the other.

With the expertness born of long practice, he lit a match inside his coat and stuck his head down to it. When he got the cigarette going he cupped it within his hand so that not a spark showed. “Cheese! that’s good!” he murmured. “That’s a life-saver!”

Presently they saw a dim figure where the street ended in the dump. Flattening themselves behind a hummock of ashes they watched it. In another moment Fin recognised the squat figure of the detective. He came down to the gate of the shanty, stood watching and listening for a while as if in uncertainty, and then went back out of sight in the dark. However, Fin did not suppose he had lost him.

“It’s a bull!” muttered the man beside him savagely. “Damn their dirty hides!”

“Yeah,” said Fin sympathetically. “It’s a nice thing if they won’t let a man sleep on the dump. If they chase us off the dump where the hell else is left for a man to go?”

“You said it, fellow. Them people has got no bowels. Them lousy millionaires has got the whole earth fenced off for theirselves; they won’t even leave the dumps to the workers!”

Fin had the impulse to ask when he had worked last, but restrained it. Full sympathy was his line. “Yeah,” he said, “what we got to do is to join together and take what we want. Throw a scare into them pot-bellied millionaires!”

“That’s what I say,” returned the other truculently. “Some day we’ll show them where they get off at. We’ll let them millionaires sweat down their fat on the road gangs while we ride round in their Rolls-Royces and spit out of the window.”

Thus they conversed in great amity, while the stranger smoked Fin’s cigarettes. “Cheese! you’re a good fellow!” he said warmly. “You’re a man after my own heart! ... You ain’t got a drink on you, have you?”

“Wish to God I had,” said Fin. The lower you go in the scale, he reflected, the easier it is to make friends.

After a while the man lay down and slept again, while Fin continued his vigil. What queer sights the stars look down on! he thought. Nobody came out or went in at the gate he was watching.

Dawn was heralded by a loud crowing of cocks within the ramshackle tin fence. Fin grinned to himself. This cheerful sound that everybody associates with the clean countryside had a weird effect on the dump. Well it’s all one to a rooster, thought Fin. Daylight revealed the full hideousness of the place with his piles of ancient rubbish. It was chilly and an unwholesome steam was rising from the stagnant water near by.

The sleeping man beside him with his bristly face and ragged dirty clothes was of a piece with the other cast-off articles. He was a small man in garments much too big for him; in age he might have been anything between thirty-five and fifty-five. Fin noted with surprise his small hands and feet, and delicate features. Just a little different turn of fortune’s wheel, he thought; and he would have been twirling a cane on Park Avenue. Fin perceived other derelicts lying here and there. So much the better, he thought; if it’s a regular hang-out for tramps, I won’t be conspicuous.

One by one these deplorable figures arose and shuffled away with shame-faced glances from side to side. No man can feel at his ease rising from a dump pile. The little fellow beside Fin opened his eyes and looked at his partner of the night with strong curiosity. At the sight of Fin’s shaven chin and fairly good clothes his camaraderie dried up. Feeling that he had been taken in he arose muttering:

“Aah, what the hell——!”

It did not suit Fin to be left alone on the dump, and he said quickly: “Wait a minute. That’s a speak-easy yonder.”

“Sure, I know it is,” returned the other.

“Fellow I know said he’d buy me a drink if I waited till he come in the morning,” said Fin. “Stick around a while and I’ll get you in on it.”

“Oh, all right,” said the little man wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in anticipation. He sat down again.

They had a long wait. Conversation did not prosper by daylight because Fin did not look the part that he was trying to play, and the little man was ill at ease. No sign of life showed outside the rambling shanty, but smoke started to issue from one of the leaning tin chimneys. Fin could not see the detective anywhere.

It was after eight before Kid River appeared. He came from the north, circling around the fence to reach the gate. Fin knew him first by the loping walk Milly had described; a moment later he recognised the weak, comely face of the photograph with deep lines etched between nostrils and lips. Fin ran to intercept him before he should reach the gate. There was no time to parley with the man who might have a dozen friends in the shanty; he must strike and strike quickly.

The instant Kid River saw Fin’s eyes he knew what was coming to him. With a scared face he turned to run back the way he had come. Fin overtook him and, still running, struck him a blow under the ear that toppled him forward on hands and knees. Fin fell on his back bearing him flat to the ground. Kid River struggled weakly—he was a weedy lad, but made no loud outcry.

“What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with you?” he kept gasping, as well he might.

The thought flitted through Fin’s mind: Anyhow I’m keeping my promise to Milly. Kneeling in the small of Kid River’s back and keeping a hand on his neck, he frisked his pockets with the other. He pulled out a little canvas bag which from the feel of it contained rings and brooches. This was no good to him, and he put it back—Kid River must have been astonished. A hasty patting of the Kid’s bony frame all over satisfied Fin that the brass ball was not upon him. A sickening disappointment.

“The brass ball,” he said, “the ball Tony Casino gave you yesterday. That’s what I want. Where is it?”

“What the hell—what the hell——” stammered Kid River in witless amazement.

“You heard what I said!” cried Fin. “Where is it?”

“I gave it to some kids in the street,” gasped the Kid.

“You lie!” cried Fin, tightening the grasp on his neck.

“Honest! Honest!” stuttered Kid River. “I didn’t know there was anything special about it. I come over on the Fourteenth Street ferry. I walked down Bloomfield. On the corner of Eleventh there was a bunch of kids playing duck on a rock in a lot there. I handed them the brass ball to pitch with because I didn’t want it found on me.”

This had the ring of truth, and Fin arose from the prostrate figure. “All right,” he said, “if you’re lying I’ll come back and smash you. I know where to find you.”

Kid River getting to his feet, cringed and gaped at him.

As Fin turned to go he saw the little scarecrow tramp sitting in the ashes, and likewise gaping at him with ridiculous hanging jaw. But his astonishment was not sufficient to make him forget what he was waiting for.

“Hey, where’s the drink I was going to get?” he cried.

Fin pitched him a quarter. “There’s the price of it,” he said. “And keep your mouth shut!”

Fin ran up Essex Street. At the corner of the first north and south street he came upon the detective lounging against some railings. Fin’s hand instinctively went to his gun. The man gave him a hard look as he passed. However, there were a number of people about, and he could not attack Fin, supposing that to be his intention. But perhaps he knew that Fin had not secured the prize.

Bloomfield was another of the north and south streets that ran the whole length of the borough. Eleventh Street crossed it several blocks to the north. By this time of day all Hoboken was abroad and the sidewalks were thronged. Fin had no doubt but that the detective was jogging along behind him. He refused to give the man the satisfaction of seeing him turn his head.

At the corner of Bloomfield and Eleventh Streets there was in fact a vacant lot, and Fin saw the stones still in place that had been used in the game of Duck on the Rock. The only children in view at the moment were three weazened boys of eleven or twelve sitting on a piece of heavy timber blowing clouds of cigarette smoke through their nostrils. Fin approached them.

“How long have you been here? he asked.

“What is it to you?” answered one impudently. “You don’t own this lot.”

“I don’t aim to chase you,” said Fin mildly. “Was there a fellow come by here a while ago and gave you a brass ball.”

“I think you’re coocoo,” answered the boy.

“He stole it off me grandmother’s bed,” said Fin. “It’s worth a half a dollar to me to get it back.”

The boys looked at each other in chagrin. “Cheese!” said one, “and we sold it for a dime!”

“Sold it!” said Fin, with a sinking heart. “Who to?”

“The rag, bone and bottle man.”

Fin silently cursed his luck. “Would you know him again?”

“Sure. He comes through here regular.”

“Do you know where his hang-out is?”

“I know,” said one boy. “What is it worth to you if we show you?”

“Dime a piece,” said Fin. His heart rose again.

“Come on.”

They set off up the street, the small boys surrounding Fin and scampering to keep up with his long stride. It was like Gulliver led by the Liliputians. The boys’ street-sharpened instincts suggested to them that there was a mystery about the brass ball, and they kept glancing inquisitively into Fin’s face, trying to read the secret.

“How did you know the guy give it to us?” one asked.

“I collared him,” said Fin, “and forced him to tell.”

“Cheese! It’s funny the guy would swipe it off you only to give it to us!”

“Yeah,” said Fin smoothly, “he’s bughouse. What they call now, a kleptomaniac.”

“Cheese!”

At Thirteenth Street two blocks further north, the boys turned to the left and led Fin to a point where the street ended against a high board fence bounding the freight yards. There on the right was the junkyard heaped with its hopeless-looking impedimenta. Tucked into the corner where the two fences joined was a tumbledown store and dwelling displaying a few so-called antiques in the dusty window.

“This here’s the place,” said Fin’s conductor, “and there’s the very guy himself inside.”

Fin distributed dimes all around, and entered the store. He ordered the boys to wait outside. The junkman and his wife were a browbeaten pair who had obviously outfitted themselves from their own stock. They cringed at the entrance of a well-dressed customer. Fin wasted no time.

“Those boys told me they sold you a brass ball a while ago,” he said.

At the suggestion that something in their possession might be valuable, a cunning look appeared in the faces of the man and woman. They sought to mask it under expressions of abysmal stupidity.

“I don’t recollect it,” said the man dully.

“Well let me see the stuff you just brought in on your cart and I’ll look for myself,” said Fin.

There was a side door from the store into the yard, and the junkman’s hand-cart with its row of cow-bells stretched between two upright sticks, was visible just outside it. While Fin watched the man went through the door and thrust his hand under a pile of bags in the cart. When he returned to the store he had the gleaming brass ball in his hand.

Fin’s heart gave a great leap of joy. If it had been a ball of pure gold it would not have meant so much to him. He had seen the other three balls on Nick Peters’ bed; he knew what he was looking for, and this was it. So furious was the coursing of his blood that it dizzied him for a moment. Masking his excitement, he said casually:

“Yes, that’s it.”

“You can have it back for five dollars,” said the junkman.

Fin believed that this ball was worth a thousand times five dollars, yes, and a thousand times that again, but a man hates to have an advantage taken of him. “Five dollars nothing, you swindler,” he said indignantly. “I’ll give you a dollar, and that’s four times what it’s worth to you. If that don’t satisfy you, I’ll fetch a cop and take it for nothing. It was stolen!”

The junk dealer surrendered with a shrug. “All right, you can have it for a dollar,” he said.

Glancing over his shoulder Fin saw the three small boys staring in through the open door at the transaction—and behind the boys the hard, wary face of the hired detective who had been watching him through the night. The man’s eyes were fixed on the brass ball in the junk dealer’s hand. The sight administered a check to Fin’s rising tide of joy. He said quickly:

“Come into the back room. I don’t want them to see me paying you for it.”

The back room served as living quarters for the couple. Junk doubtlessly has a demoralising effect on those who deal in it; for the place presented a hideously squalid aspect. Here the dollar and the brass ball changed hands. Fin had the blessed object in his possession at last. He dropped it in his pants pocket with a thrill of satisfaction.

This room had a door looking towards the back of the yard. The railway fence ran alongside. Once he had his prize safe, Fin said:

“That fellow outside is laying for me. Can I get out this way?”

“It’s nothing to me,” said junkman surlily. He felt that he ought to have had more than a dollar out of this curious situation, whatever the rights of it might be. “The railway detectives will run you in if they see you,” he added.

“I’ll chance them,” said Fin, grinning.

He jumped for the top of the fence, hauled himself up, and dropped down on the other side. There was no one in sight in the yard. Suspecting that the junk dealer would promptly sell him out to the detective, he ran with all his speed to the nearest gate. This gave on Fourteenth Street, one of Hoboken’s principal thoroughfares. By good luck he picked up a taxi, and two minutes later he was aboard a ferry pulling out of its slip, with his prize in his pocket, and free of espionage at last.

Fin experienced a fine moment of exultation. He snatched off his hat to let the river breeze cool his throbbing forehead. Unable to keep still he walked up and down the deck singing an inward pæan. “I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I’ve done it!” He pictured how beautifully Nick Peters’ worn grave face would light up when he saw the prize. Fin felt like a king.

In thus dashing for the ferry he had yielded to a blind instinct to shake off the dog that was sniffing at his trail. As he cooled down he began to perceive he had made an error in tactics. What good was it to shake him off? As soon as it was reported to his master (whoever he might be) that Fin had recovered the brass ball, what would he do? Simply lie in wait for Fin outside Nick Peters’ store. The young man’s ebullient spirits subsided. He saw now that what he ought to have done was to dash straight for Nick’s place in an effort to get there first.

Well, it was no use wasting his time in vain regrets. What he had to do now was to study how to reach Nick in spite of them. He remembered that Nick’s store was in the first of a row of tall tenement houses, the last one of which abutted on Hudson Street. These houses all belonged to the same estate. Suppose he entered the end house and made his way to Nick’s place either through the cellars or over the roofs?

At Twenty-Third Street, Manhattan, Fin merely changed to one of the Lackawanna ferries, and returned to the other end of Hoboken. At the ferry terminal he took a taxi and had himself set down near the house on Hudson Street that he intended to enter. Discovering that there was no communication through the cellars, he climbed to the roof. Here it was clear going over the parapets to the house where Nick lived. In each house there was a door giving on the top of the stairs.

As he was about to descend through the last house, Fin was stopped by a thought. Suppose the enemy to have three or four men on the job by this time, would they not be stationed in the halls of the house? In that case Fin would be running directly into a trap. He recollected that the air-shaft on which Nick Peters’ window opened also served the house next door, and he determined to go down through that house and endeavour to gain Nick’s window through the shaft. The decision undoubtedly saved his life.

Through a cellar window he reached the bottom of the air-shaft. Over his head he saw that Nick’s window was open. A heavy iron waste pipe with joints at three-foot intervals enabled him to reach the sill. So Tony Casino had gone two nights before. Fin threw his legs over the sill and ducked his head under the raised sash.

The air-shaft was a narrow one, and it ran up four more stories before opening to the sky. Consequently it admitted but little light to Nick Peters’ room, and for a moment Fin could make out nothing. An ominous silence hung over the place. “Nick! Nick!” he called softly. There was no reply. The bed faced him from across the room, and with growing horror he perceived that there was a motionless body upon it.

Springing across he discovered his friend lying in a twisted position, his face horribly contorted, the eyeballs starting from his head. A twisted cord was cutting deeply into his neck. The body was still warm; the deed must have been committed within five minutes, and Fin was afflicted with an agony of self-blame! If I had only come straight here perhaps I could have saved him!

Whipping out his pocket-knife he cut the cord. Straightening the limbs of the body he climbed upon the bed and endeavoured to promote artificial respiration. But his efforts were in vain. Nick’s heart had stopped beating. His body was growing cold under Fin’s hands. Too late! Too late! he thought despairingly.

He heard furtive sounds out in the stair hall of the house, and sprang to the door. The key was in it. As Fin laid a hand on it he found it was unlocked. He no more than got the key turned when the handle was softly tried from the other side.

The young man paused in the centre of the room, distraught with grief and irresolution. What shall I do? What shall I do? His friend was dead beyond recall, and the instinct of self-preservation moved strongly within him. If they know I’m in here, they’ll soon cut off my escape by the air-shaft. Like a flash he was out of the window again. Gaining the cellar of the next house, he ran up to the roof three steps at a time.